George Russell arrives at the Formula 1 Hungarian GP with answers he didn’t have after the frustrating weekend in Spa. The Mercedes driver stated that the team managed to identify the source of the problems that compromised his performance at the Belgian GP.
Read more F1: Verstappen confirms return of part that caused headaches for Red Bull
The retirement on the very first lap, after a collision with Lewis Hamilton, was the culmination of a complicated weekend for Russell. Despite the frustration expressed over the radio, the Briton stated that the team worked intensely to understand what happened.
Throughout the Belgian round, Russell complained about the W17’s lack of straight-line speed. In qualifying, he finished 0.508s behind Kimi Antonelli, losing about four tenths in the final sector of the track alone.
According to the British driver, Mercedes identified that the power unit algorithms were distributing performance delivery inadequately along the 7.004 kilometers of Spa-Francorchamps. This caused the car to have more power in certain sections but suffer in other decisive points of the lap.
In the race, an additional problem aggravated the situation. Russell lost power on the climb to Raidillon, still on the first lap, becoming vulnerable to competitors and being overtaken by Charles Leclerc and Hamilton, before the incident at Les Combes, which resulted in his retirement.
Read more F1: Steiner asks for more support from Italy for Antonelli
After retiring from the race, Russell made a strong outburst over the radio, calling the situation ‘unacceptable’. The official broadcast did not show the message, which only became public later through images released by a German broadcaster.
Commenting on the episode this Thursday in Hungary, Russell adopted a more measured tone: “I’m feeling good now, three days after Spa. I think we’ve uncovered some of the issues that were hindering us last weekend, and that’s encouraging to hear. It’s also good to see the hard work done at the factory to get to the root of the issue,” he stated.
The British driver emphasized that the problem should not be attributed solely to the team: “We are in this together. What happened in Spa already showed some signs at Silverstone, and that’s not up to the standard we collectively want. When you’ve just been taken out of the race and are sitting in the gravel on the first lap, emotions run high,” he added.
Russell concluded by highlighting the complexity of current cars: “Spa gave us a great opportunity to identify where to look for the problem, and when the team investigated that area, they found the cause. These cars and these power units are extremely complex, you can’t check every small parameter because there are so many of them,” he completed.
Read more F3: Check the schedule and where to watch the Hungarian round on streaming
